The  Manufacture  and  Sale 

of 

Munitions  of  War 


BY 

CHARLES  NOBLE  GREGORY,  A.M.,  LL.D. 

Chairman  Standing  Committee  International  Law,  American  Bar 
Member  Board  Editors  American  Journal  International  Law 
Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Arts,  London 


An  Address 

delivered  before  the 

NATIONAL  CONVENTION 

of  the 

Navy  League  of  the  United  States 


Washington,  D.  C. 

April  10-13,  1916 


For  additional  copies,  order  pamphlet  No.  46 
from  the 

NAVY  LEAGUE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 
Southern  Building,  Washington,  D.  C. 


THE  NAVY  LEAGUE. 


A  SOCIETY  TO  HELP  INSURE  THE  UNITED 
STATES  AGAINST  INVASION. 


'HB  Navy  League  is  an  association  of  people 


*  who  wish  to  keep  war  out  of  the  United  States 
and  believe  that  the  surest  way  to  do  so  is  to  main- 
ain  a  navy  so  strong  that  no  nation  can  get  its 
forces  across  the  ocean  to  attack  us.  It  has  no 
connection  with  any  business  or  political  organi¬ 
zation  of  any  kind  and  is  neither  pro-anything 
nor  anti-anything,  but  just  plain  Ameican. 

The  League  was  organized  in  1903,  and  includes 
among  its  membership  Hon.  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
Hon.  Alton  B.  Parker,  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Bishop 
John  N.  McCormick,  Jacob  H.  Schiff,  Isaac  N. 
Seligman,  Henry  Watterson  and  Joseph  H.  Choate 
and  such  women  as  Mrs.  William  Cumming  Story, 
Mrs.  George  Dewey,  Mrs.  Hugh  L.  Scott,  Mrs. 
Gibson  Fahnestock,  Mrs.  Bmma  Smith  DeVoe, 
Mrs.  Genevieve  Champ  Clark  Thomson,  Miss 
Mabel  P.  Boardman  and  Mrs.  George  Barnett.  Its 
accounts  are,  and  always  have  been,  open  to  in¬ 
spection  on  proper  application. 


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THE  MANUFACTURE  AND  SALE  OF  MUNITIONS 

OF  WAR 

CHARGES  NOBEE  GREGORY 

In  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  under  the  title  “Gun 
powder”  I  find  that  fatal  material  described  as  “An  explosive 
composed  of  saltpeter,  charcoal  and  sulphur,”  and  the  state¬ 
ment  added  “Very  few  substances  have  had  a  greater  effect 
on  civilization  than  gun-powder.” 

That  the  higher  developmnt  of  life  (which  is  civilization) 
should  be  fostered  by  a  new  and  terrible  means  of  inflicting 
death,  seems  a  paradox.  Yet  we  must  reflect  that  the  first 
necessity  for  any  developing  civilization,  with  the  wealth  and 
prosperity  which  it  creates,  is  defense  against  the  barbarism 
which  it  ofifends  by  its  advance  and  tempts  by  its  prompt  ac¬ 
cumulations.  Greek  and  Roman  discipline  furnished  a  con¬ 
siderable  element  of  this  kind  and  protected  Greek  and  Ro¬ 
man  arts,  law,  and  letters  remarkably;  but  the  one  great  in¬ 
vention  which  at  once  gave  civilized  man  dominion  over  sav¬ 
age  man,  even  when  a  hundred-fold  out-numbered,  was  gun¬ 
powder.  That  made  the  renaissance  possible.  That  made 
the  conquest  of  the  American  Continents  by  our  European 
ancestors  assured  and  furnished  the  basis  of  all  that  has  fol¬ 
lowed.  We  are  here,  our  blood,  law,  language,  and  church 
spires  are  here,  as  a  result. 

Brawn  had  to  give  way  to  brains.  The  Chemist  was  more 
than  the  Smith.  The  Armoured  Knight  upon  his  Armoured 
Charger  went  down  before  the  Musketeer,  before  the  man 
on  foot ,  the  noble  before  the  peasant,  and  democracy  became 
possible. 

In  the  struggle  for  existence  weaker  forms  of  life  survive 
by  fecundity,  by  powers  of  flight  or  of  climbing  a  tree  or 
digging  a  hole,  but  the  finest  and  freest  by  power  of  attack 
and  defense. 


1 


We,  I  submit,  wish  to  develop  and  maintain  a  race  of  this 
finest  and  freest  type,  not  guinea-pigs  or  white  rabbits,  not 
antelopes,  squirrels  or  rats,  but  men  inferior  to  no  creatures 
in  power  of  attack  and  defense.  I  say  attack,  because  that  is 
often  the  best  form  of  defense. 

I  speak  of  Gun-powder,  but  I  figure  by  that  all  those  war¬ 
like  supplies  on  which  defense  must  rest. 

Beasts  still  fight  with  talons  and  hoofs,  claws,  horns  and 
fangs  and  nothing  else.  So  did  man  once,  but  when  the  first 
anthropoid  Ape  or  primitive  man  broke  a  branch  from  the 
oak  and  with  it  struck  down  his  foe  —  when  in  the  Garden 
Cain  slew  his  brother  with  a  club,  preparation  began.  The 
dominion  of  the  prepared  over  the  un-prepared  began  and 
has  never  ended.  To  which  class  shall  we  belong? 

If  Abel  had  been  vigilant  and  had  had  the  bigger  club 
what  a  benefit  to  the  world  his  club  would  have  been !  As 
it  is,  I  suppose,  we  are  all  sons  of  Cain. 

I  am  here  to  advocate  one  source  of  safety,  and  that 
mechanical,  and  not  picturesque  or  heroic.  Namely  that 
the  business  and  laboring  men  of  this  country  be  allowed  to 
freely  manufacture  munitions  of  war  and  freely  vend  and 
export  them  to  all,  except  the  enemies  of  the  United  States. 

I  claim  these  rights  for  them  because  they  are  lawful,  be¬ 
cause  all  nations  have  agreed  to  them  and  far  more,  be¬ 
cause  they  conduce  to  the  welfare  not  only  of  our  own  coun¬ 
try  but  of  mankind  and  are  therefore  politic  and  right. 

First:  They  are  lawful.  Neither  International  nor 
Municipal  Law  forbids  them.  By  custom  and  prescription 
the  workers  of  the  principal  nations,  including  our  own,  have 
for  generations  exercised  them. 

Our  first  Secretary  of  State,  appointed  by  Washington,  as¬ 
serted  them  in  a  communication  to  the  British  Minister, 

May  15,  1793.  Mr.  Jefferson  says : 

“Our  citizens  have  been  always  free  to  make,  vend 
and  export  arms.  It  is  the  constant  occupation  and 
livelihood  of  some  of  them.  To  suppress  their  call¬ 
ings,  the  only  means  perhaps  of  their  subsistence,  be¬ 
cause  a  war  exists  in  foreign  and  distant  countries, 
in  which  we  have  no  concern,  would  scarcely  be  ex-  t 


) 


2 


pected.  It  would  be  hard  in  principle  and  impossible 
in  practice.  The  law  of  nations,  therefore,  respecting 
the  rights  of  those  at  peace,  does  not  require  from 
them  such  an  internal  disarrangement  in  their  occu¬ 
pations.  It  is  satisfied  with  the  external  penalty  pro¬ 
nounced  in  the  president’s  proclamation,  that  of  con¬ 
fiscation  of  such  portion  of  those  arms  as  shall  fall 
into  the  hands  of  any  of  the  belligerent  powers  on 
their  way  to  the  port  of  their  enemies.” 

Alexander  Hamilton,  our  first  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
is  equally  positive  to  the  same  effect.  In  a  Treasury  circular 
of  August  4,  1793,  he  declares : 

“The  purchasing  within,  and  exporting  from  the 
United  States,  by  way  of  merchandise,  articles  com¬ 
monly  called  contraband,  being  generally  war-like  in¬ 
struments,  and  military  stores,  is  free  to  all  the  parties 
at  war,  and  is  not  to  be  interfered  with.” 

If  the  democrats  question  our  views,  I  cite  Jefferson  their 
founder;  and  if  the  republicans,  I  cite  Hamilton,  their 
founder. 

Mr.  Seward,  the  great  Secretary  of  State  under  Abraham 
Lincoln,  when  Mexico  objected  to  the  sale  of  military  sup¬ 
plies  to  the  French  under  Maximillian,  answered  with  equal 
decision,  asserting  our  right  and  saying  that  otherwise, 
“Commerce, ....  instead  of  being  free  and  independent, 
would  exist  only  at  the  caprice  of  war.”  (December  15, 
1862).  Mr.  Seward  and  our  whole  people  were  most  hostile 
to  the  French  occupations  and  ultimately  compelled  its 
abandonment,  but  the  rule  was  too  clear  to  dispute  and  too 
important  to  in  any  way  abate. 

Hon.  John  Bassett  Moore,  our  greatest  and  ripest  inter¬ 
national  publicist,  to  whom  I  owe  my  other  references,  in  his 
digest  prints  eighteen  pages  of  extracts  to  like  effect  from 
Secretaries  of  State,  Attorneys-General,  and  Presidents, 
from  Henry  Clay,  General  Grant,  Marcey,  Fish,  Evarts, 
Bayard,  Frelinghuysen,  Blaine,  Foster,  Olney,  and  John 
Hay,  and  also  a  clear  and  strong  opinion  by  Mr.  Elihu  Root. 

The  famous  Lord  Chancellor  Westbury  was  called  the 
boldest  Judge  that  ever  lived  and  was  said,  in  a  celebrated 


decision,  to  have  “abolished  Hell,  with  costs.”  He  quoted 
from  the  opinion  of  our  own  Supreme  Court,  written  by  its 
greatest  scholar  in  International  law,  Justice  Story,  and  ap¬ 
proved  the  following  passage : 

“There  is  nothing  in  our  laws  or  in  the  law  of  na¬ 
tions  that  forbids  our  citizens  from  sending  muni¬ 
tions  of  war  to  foreign  ports  for  sale.  It  is  a  com¬ 
mercial  adventure  which  no  nation  is  bound  to  pro¬ 
hibit,  and  which  only  exposes  the  persons  engaged  in 
it  to  the  penalty  of  confiscation.” 

In  1901,  our  United  States  Court  for  the  Eastern  District 
jf  Louisiana  held  the  same  as  to  exports  of  war  supplies  to 
Great  Britain  during  the  Boer  War;  and,  in  1905,  the  Eng¬ 
lish  Courts  held  like  Doctrine  as  to  the  shipment  of  contra¬ 
band  during  the  Russo-Japanese  War. 

Two  years  later,  in  1907,  the  second  Hague  Conference, 
representing  substantially  all  the  nations  of  the  world, 
adopted  the  following  convention : 

“A  neutral  power  is  not  bound  to  prevent  the  ex¬ 
port  or  transit  on  behalf  of  one  or  the  other  of  the 
belligerents  of  arms,  munitions  of  war,  or,  generally, 
of  anything  which  can  be  of  use  to  an  army  or  fleet.” 

This  declaration  was  especially  desired  by  Germany.  One 
of  our  delegates  at  the  conference  said  to  this  writer  that  ap¬ 
parently  the  main  purpose  of  the  Conference  was  to  prevent 
any  interference  with  the  export  of  arms  by  the  Krupps  at 
Essen. 

Austria  Hungary  and  Germany  promptly  ratified  this  con¬ 
vention,  November  27,  1909,  which  merely  re-affirmed  the 

established  rule. 

Mr.  Bryan,  then  Secretary  of  State,  who  is  believed  to 
have  communed  more  often  with  the  Dove  than  with  the 
Eagle,  in  January  1915,  in  a  communication  to  Senator 
Stone,  fully  confirmed  this  doctrine. 

This  right  so  deeply  grounded  in  practice,  precedent  and 
agreement,  in  the  opinion  of  statesmen  and  of  Judges,  is  con¬ 
stantly  attacked  and  criticised,  and  sought  to  be  revoked  by 

4 


3 


direct  statute :  it  is  constantly  condemned  as  immoral  and 
impolitic  by  the  thoughtless  and  uninstructed,  though  well 
intentioned,  advocates  of  peace.  I  submit  that  these  critics 
misapprehend  the  effect  of  the  rule  and  the  results  which 
would  flow  from  its  repeal. 

The  ability  of  a  peaceful  commercial  state  to  freely  ex¬ 
change  her  wealth  for  war  supplies  in  the  worlds  markets  is 
her  one  great  defense  and  her  one  chief  bulwark. 

If  she  could  not  use  her  cash  and  her  credit  in  the  worlds 
marts  to  equip  herself  for  defense  when  attacked,  her  wealth 
would  be  merely  a  lure  to  the  robber  states,  a  source  of  weak¬ 
ness  and  not  of  strength. 

If  a  nation,  the  moment  she  is  assailed,  finds  all  outside 
ports  closed  to  her,  all  markets  shut,  if  she  must  resist  the 
premeditated  and  prepared  attack  with  such  munitions  as  she 
has  on  hand  then  either  the  peaceful  commercial  nations 
must  be  rapidly  and  hopelessly  conquered  and  enslaved,  or 
they  must  change  their  whole  type  and  adopt  the  military 
policy  in  its  entirety  and,  to  be  safe,  keep  always  at  the  top 
notch  of  preparedness,  with  nothing  lacking  to  defeat  any 
foe.  Certainly  the  cause  of  peace  can  not  be  served  by  of¬ 
fering  to  peaceful  and  prosperous  nations  like  our  own  the 
dilemma  of  destruction  or  the  adoption  of  the  extremes  of 
militarism. 

Yet,  if  by  this  change  of  rule  you  sterilize  the  wealth  of 
these  countries,  so  that  in  time  of  war  it  can  draw  to  them  no 
equipment,  that  would  be  the  result. 

Any  nation  caught  unprepared  must  miserably  perish  or 
miserably  submit.  She  could  not  get  from  outside,  as  this 
writer  lately  pointed  out  in  The  Outlook,  “A  pound  of 
powder,  a  gallon  of  petrol,  an  ounce  of  copper,  a  gun,  a  sabre, 
a  harness,  or  a  horse.” 

As  General  Wood  said  recently  to  a  Committee  of  Con¬ 
gress:  “We  are  gradually  accumulating  most  of  the  gold  of 
the  world.  We  had  better  stiffen  that  supply  of  gold  with  a 
little  iron.” 

If  the  rule  allowing  a  belligerent  to  buy  and  neutrals  to 
sell  war  supplies  were  abolished,  all  this  wealth  would  be,  in 


case  of  attack,  as  useless  to  us  as  a  ton  of  gold  to  a  ship¬ 
wrecked  sailor  dying  of  thirst  on  a  barren  reef. 

This  writer  lately  said,  and  he  would  re-affirm : 

“Wars  now  are  sudden  as  conflagrations  in  their 
origin  and  the  advantages  of  preparation  and  initia¬ 
tive  are  immense.  Why  make  them  vastly  greater? 
Why  tempt  to  secret  preparation  and  sudden  aggres¬ 
sion  by  greatly  reducing  the  resources  and  avails  of 
the  defending  power?  Why  aid  the  wolf  and  ham¬ 
string  the  lamb?  Why  by  a  change  of  law  and  policy 
aid  and  encourage  the  predatory  policy,  and  debili¬ 
tate  defense?  Such  change  must  stimulate  war  and 
discourage  peace.” 

Such  a  change  of  law  and  practice,  it  is  submitted,  is 
highly  opposed  to  the  general  interests  of  mankind.  It  magni¬ 
fies  the  power  of  the  prepared  and  predatory  states  and  it 
hinders  and  prevents  the  defense  of  the  pacific  states.  It 
helps  the  carnivorous  states,  and  it  hurts  the  herbivorous 
states,  as  it  were.  It  sharpens  the  fangs  of  the  wolf,  con¬ 
stantly  used  in  attack,  and  it  takes  away  the  antlers  of  the 
stag,  as  constantly  used  for  defense  alone.  It  tends  to  em¬ 
broil  the  nations  and  to  destroy  their  balance  and  repose.  It 
is  a  pernicious,  unwise,  and  immoral  restraint,  an  injurious 
change  in  a  just  rule. 

But  it  has  be£n  urged  that  in  the  present  war  one  side 
commands  the  sea,  and  therefore  the  other  is  excluded  from 
our  markets,  which  are  in  fact  open  to  only  one,  and  that 
this  is  not  “true  neutrality.” 

I  submit  that  because  one  of  the  belligerents  has  an  ad¬ 
vantage  over  the  other,  got  by  the  exercises  of  war,  is  no 
ground  for  changing  the  rule  to  his  detriment.  The  neutral 
does  his  full  duty  if  he  leaves  his  market  door  open  freely  to 
both,  letting  either  hinder  the  other  in  his  access  as  much  as 
he  can.  The  neutral  vendor  has  nothing  to  do  with  access. 
That  is  the  business  of  the  belligerents,  each  to  get  it  for 
himself  and  to  defeat  the  getting  it  by  the  other. 

At  present  the  Central  powers  are  denied  access  to  our 
markets  by  the  British  naval  supremacy.  During  the  South 


6 


African  War,  when  the  Boers,  for  like  reason,  had  no  access 
to  German  markets,  the  German  dealers  still  thought  it  right 
to  sell  to  Great  Britain  large  quantities  of  munitions,  al¬ 
though  Germany  was  friendly  to  the  Boers  and  profoundly 
hostile  to  England. 

This  writer  tabulated  from  the  British  Custom  House  re¬ 
ports  large  numbers  of  such  sales,  and  submitted  the  same  to 
the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science  at 
Philadelphia,  in  1915.  The  neutrality  board  of  our  govern¬ 
ment  verified  the  figures,  except  for  some  minor  and  insigni¬ 
ficant  errors,  and  filed  them  with  the  Department  of  State, 
and  Senator  Cabot  Lodge  kindly  wrote  this  writer  that  they 
were  used  in  the  reply  of  the  United  States  to  Austria.  The 
practice  of  Germany  was  entirely  correct,  and  so  is  the  ex¬ 
actly  similar  practice  of  the  United  States  at  the  present 
time. 

The  practice  of  Germany,  moreover,  in  fostering  her  enor¬ 
mous  establishments  privately  owned  for  the  production  of 
arms  and  munitions  is  wise  and  politic  and  affords  us  a 
most  useful  example. 

The  Paris  correspondent  of  the  Army  and  Navy  Journal 
recently  mentioned  that  the  works  at  Essen  employed  a  hun¬ 
dred  and  thirty  thousand  hands.  The  Ambassador  of  one 
of  the  great  powers,  long  in  the  diplomatic  service,  recently 
told  this  writer  that  no  one  in  the  service  could  fail  to  see 
that  the  principal  business  of  the  Army  and  Navy  Attaches 
of  Germany  was  to  place  foreign  orders  for  arms  and  muni¬ 
tions  with  their  great  factories.  Thus,  with  profit  to  Germany 
their  colossal  works  in  times  of  peace  were  established,  sus¬ 
tained,  and  extended.  Thus,  like  manufacturers  in  other 
countries  were  undermined,  discouraged,  and  broken  down. 
When  war  came,  Germany  was  prepared  and  ready  to  in¬ 
crease  her  supplies  from  within,  and  the  other  countries 
which  had  too  much  depended  upon  her  were  in  quite  the 
opposite  situation.  Cannon  for  the  defense  of  Antwerp  had 
been  contracted  for  in  time  of  peace  by  a  Great  German 
maker,  but  the  great  part,  though  a  year  over  due,  were  not 
delivered.  Many  of  the  bombs  furnished  by  the  German 

7 


makers  would  not  explode,  and  Antwerp  fell  a  rich  and  easy 
prey  to  the  invaders. 

This  incident  illustrates  the  danger  and  inconvenience 
of  depending  upon  a  neighboring  state  for  munitions  of  war. 
That  state  may  be  at  any  time  your  enemy  in  war  and  may 
contemplate  that  situation  long  before  you  awake  to  its 
menace.  Even  if  not  your  enemy  in  war,  it  may,  as  an  inci¬ 
dent  of  war,  become  wholly  inaccessible  to  you,  however 
friendly,  as  Germany  to  the  South  African  republics  during 
the  late  Boer  war,  and  as  all  the  American  Republics  to 
Germany  at  the  present  time.  Moreover,  private  factories 
are  apt  to  be  numerous  and  widespread;  therefore,  in  case 
of  invasion,  they  afford  greater  prospect  of  safety.  No 
part  of  the  country  which  continues  to  resist  is  apt  to  be 
wholly  without  such  resources. 

Our  army  arsenals,  which  largely  manufacture  our  arms 
and  munitions  are,  with  one  exception,  near  Atlantic  tide 
water  and  between  Boston  and  Philadelphia, — a  very  import¬ 
ant,  but,  after  all,  limited  and  exposed  part  of  the  United 
States.  The  one  exception  is  the  Rock  Island  Arsenal,  which 
occupies  an  ideal  position  in  the  heart  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley. 

In  the  present  war,  the  great  factories  at  Liege, — for  many 
forms  of  arms,  especially  small  arms,  perhaps  the  greatest 
in  the  world, — were  early  captured  by  the  central  powers 
and  became  a  part  of  their  warlike  assets.  Lodz,  in  Russian 
Poland,  had  a  like  fate.  Over  one-half  of  the  industrial  plants 
of  France  were,  in  like  manner,  seized,  and  held  by  the 
enemy. 

Our  Middle  West  and  Southwest,  with  their  abundance 
of  coal  and  iron,  their  oil  and  copper,  their  vast  systems  of 
transportation  and  their  thronging  labor  markets,  ought  not 
to  be  forbidden  or  discouraged  from  the  manufacture  and 
sale  of  munitions  of  war.  Let  their  unsurpassed  resources 
and  energies  be  mobilized  in  these  lines  purely  for  the  gains 
of  commerce;  yet  they  remain  a  great  safety  and  resource  to 
this  republic  in  case  of  attack,  or  emergency. 

There  is  no  wiser  proverb  than  that  which  advises  against 


8 


putting  all  your  eggs  in  one  basket.  Let  our  arsenals  be 
maintained,  but  by  no  means  refuse  to  utilize  and  recognize 
the  energy,  capital,  and  labor  embarked  by  private  enter¬ 
prise  in  like  productions  whose  enormous  contributions  can 
be  switched  in  a  moment  from  foreign  commerce  to  the  aid 
of  our  flag  and  our  country. 

Far  be  it  from  me,  even  to  think  of  our  seacoast  as  de¬ 
fenseless  or  abandoned ;  but  our  flag  and  our  republic  de¬ 
serve  something  more  than  a  first  line  of  defense,  and  that 
first  line  deserves  a  loyal  unshrinking  support  from  behind, 
not  merely  in  men  but  munitions. 

Our  whole  supply  of  sodium  nitrate,  on  which  the  manu¬ 
facture  of  explosives  depends,  comes  by  sea  from  Chile.  In 
case  of  war  with  a  naval  power,  or  with  two  naval  powers, 
stronger  than  we  are  upon  the  sea,  it  would  be  instantly  cut 
off. 

Modern  science  has  taught  us  to  derive  nitrates  from  the 
air  by  the  use  of  electricity.  The  process  requires  elaborate 
machinery  and  preparation.  Its  installation  requires  a  length 
of  time.  Its  product  is  as  valuable  as  a  fertilizer  of  our 
fields  in  peace  as  for  the  manufacture  of  explosives  in  war. 
It  is  produced  most  economically  by  water  power.  Our 
country  abounds  in  water  power,  much  of  it  belonging  to  the 
government.  10,000  horse-power  goes  to  waste  at  the  Rock 
Island  Arsenal  on  the  Mississippi  and  at  innumerable  other 
points  the  waste  of  this  vast  source  of  energy  is  far  greater. 
Government  should  encourage  in  every  way  such  factories  to 
utilize  this  waste  power.  They  are  as  wholesome  in  peace 
as  they  are  needed  in  war.  They  enrich  us  in  the  one  and 
they  defend  us  in  the  other  and  add  vastly  to  our  independ¬ 
ence  and  security.  The  needed  capital  is  understood  to  wait 
only  permission  to  harness  the  water  now  running  to 
waste,  and  to  make  it  work  for  the  profit  of  capital,  for 
the  employment  of  labor,  and  the  safety  of  us  all. 

Senator  Underwood,  than  whom  no  man  in  public  life  is 
more  entitled  to  our  gratitude  and  our  confidence,  is  urging 
the  establishment  of  a  government  plant  for  this  purpose  and 
I  am  not  suggesting  anything  in  opposition  to  that  plan. 


9 


March  30  last  he  said :  “Germany  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  had  two  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  tons  of  nitrogen. 
The  supply  was  exhausted  in  two  months.”  That  Germany, 
lacking  water  power,  has  had  to  create  great  steam  power 
plants  for  this  purpose,  which  are  much  less  economical ;  that 
to  get  two-thirds  the  power  Germany  is  using,  we  would 
need  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  horsepower,  and  that 
for  economy  this  should  be  developed  in  one  place ;  that  there 
are  few  places  capable  of  developing  such  power,  and  if  the 
government  delays,  private  capital  will  preempt  them. 

General  Crozier  testified :  “These  processes  are  now  con¬ 
trolled  by  private  individuals  in  this  country.  We  do  not 
know  how  to  use  them,”  but  he  thinks  we  would  not  apply  in 
vain  to  “the  patriotism  or  other  good  will”  of  the  owners  of 
these  processes. 

The  chief  objection  to  undertaking  to  manufacture  our 
whole  supply  at  one  government  plant  is  that  it  leaves  us 
dependent  upon  the  safety  of  those  works.  The  protected 
activities  of  a  single  popular  member  of  the  diplomatic  corps 
might  destroy  them  over  night .  The  wider  plan  by  which  the 
government  and  private  enterprise  at  various  points  both 
produce  this  essential  supply  will  most  conduce  to  safety,  and 
some  sacrifice  of  economy  is  warranted. 

As  to  the  advantage  of  these  developments,  I  do  not  speak 
alone.  As  to  the  danger  and  disadvantage  of  depending  upon 
narrow  and  inadequate  war  supplies,  derived  from  a  limited 
and  exposed  territory,  I  do  not  speak  alone. 

I  trust  it  is  not  invidious  to  refer,  among  many,  to  two 
men,  as  thoughtful  and  far-sighted  as  any  in  our  service, 
who  within  the  past  three  months  have  fully  and  in  greater 
detail  testified  in  support  of  these  views  before  the  Com¬ 
mittee  on  Military  Affairs  of  our  House  of  Representatives, 
—  namely,  Major  General  Leonard  Wood,  late  Chief  of 
Staff,  and  Brigadier  General  William  Crozier,  for  fourteen 
years  Chief  of  Ordnance. 

The  Department  of  Ordnance  recognizes  that  such  private 
factories  are  an  aid  to  and  not  a  hinderance  to  the  work  of 
our  arsenals,  and  that  they  promote  in  every  way  the  effici- 


10 


ency,  the  advance  in  inventions,  and  the  supply  of  ordnance 
and  munitions. 

England  had  depended  too  much  on  inadequate  govern¬ 
ment  arsenals,  but  all  that  has  been  changed.  The  man  of  the 
greatest  energy  and  resources  in  the  Kingdom  was  made 
Minister  of  Munitions  of  War  and  given  a  free  hand.  A 
pamphlet  just  received  from  Sir  Gilbert  Parker  says,  “We 
have  multiplied  our  production  of  munitions  nearly  three 
hundred  fold  and  we  are  taking  steps  to  multiply  it  many 
times  more.”  Workers  have  been  registered,  private  fac¬ 
tories  by  the  hundred  taken  over. 

General  Crozier  testified  in  January  that  both  sides  ran 
short  of  ammunition  in  the  first  six  months  of  the  present 
war.  That  Germany  was  the  first  to  recover,  because  she  had 
her  factories  mobilized  and  was  ready  to  use  their  installa¬ 
tions.  That  France,  too,  recovered  quickly,  but  England 
more  slowly  because  short  of  Government  factories  and  un¬ 
able  to  mobilize  private  works,  and  that  neither  of  these 
has  yet  caught  up. 

Lloyd  George  said,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  on  Decem¬ 
ber  20,  last:  “The  place  acquired  by  machinery  in  the  arts 
of  peace  in  the  nineteenth  century  has  been  won  by  machin¬ 
ery  in  the  grim  art  of  war  in  the  twentieth  century.  In  no 
war  ever  fought  in  the  world  has  the  preponderance  of 
machinery  been  so  completely  established.” 

He  showed  that  all  the  successes  and  failures  of  the  war 
had  been  due  to  “mechanical  preponderance.”  He  said  that 
the  allies  had  the  mechanical  superiority  in  the  navies,  and 
were  accordingly  supreme  on  the  sea.  “What  we  stint  in 
munitions  we  squander  in  life,  that  is  the  one  great  lesson 
of  munitions,”  he  said. 

Our  lesson  of  the  present  war  is  that  the  consumption  of 
powder  and  munitions  is  both  vastly  beyond  all  experience, 
and  beyond  the  most  modern  and  liberal  estimates,  as  our 
Chief  of  Ordnance  has  testified.  In  one  great  battle,  as  much 
was  used  as  in  the  entire  Boer  war. 

Rapid  fire  guns  are  of  infinite  importance  for  attack  and 
greatly  more  for  defense,  but  they  are  prodigal  of  powder 


and  ball.  Guns  of  much  increased  calibre  are  used  even  as  field 
artillery,  because  modern  machinery  can  move  them  as  horses 
could  not,  and  they,  too,  are  prodigal  of  powder  and  ball. 

When  for  a  time  supplies  of  munitions  failed  the  Russian 
army,  those  brave  men  fought  desperately  with  clubs  and 
sticks.  Machine  guns  and  artillery  won.  The  unprepared 
failed  and  died,  and  the  prepared  swept  over  Poland. 

The  lessons  I  would  urge  upon  our  nation  are : 

That  we  have  a  right  by  all  laws,  international  and  muni¬ 
cipal,  to  manufacture  and  freely  sell  to  all  comers  muni¬ 
tions  of  war  (except  when  restrained  by  special  laws,  as 
along  our  Southern  border). 

That  such  right  ought  to  be  fully  preserved  and  freely  ex¬ 
ercised,  because  it  vastly  strengthens  our  country  for  de¬ 
fense  in  this  time  of  unprecedented  menace  and  of  un¬ 
fathomed  danger. 

That  such  rights  should  not  only  remain  unabridged,  free 
from  hinderance  or  discouragement,  but  should  be  fostered, 
protected  and  encouraged. 

That  in  so  doing  we  adopt  a  policy  hostile  to  no  nation  and 
salutary  to  our  own. 


12 


THE  NAVY  LEAGUE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 
Southern  Building,  Washington,  D.  C. 

I  am  in  sympathy  with  the  objects  of  the  Navy  League  and 

desire  to  become  a  member.  I  enclose  $ . for 

fees,  of  which  $1.00  is  for  a  year’s  subscription  to  the  magazine 
“Sea  Power,”  and  the  remainder  for  membership  dues. 

I  desire  to  be  enrolled  as  a . member. 

Indicate  Class  of  Membership  desired. 


Name  . 

Address  . 

Memberships. — Annual  Member,  $2.00;  Contributing  Member, 
$5.00;  Life  Member,  $25.00;  Founder,  $100.00. 


P.  46  A.H.S.  8-8-'  1 6 


THE  NAVY  LEAGUE  — ANY  AMERICAN  MAY  JOIN 


Remit  dues  to  NAVY  LEAGUE,  SOUTHERN  BUILDING, 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C.  Every  dollar  received  is  spent  in  a 
j  campaign  of  patriotic  education,  in  spreading  the  gospel  of  pre¬ 

paredness,  and  furnishing  reliable  information  as  to  the  condi¬ 
tion  of  our  naval  defenses. 

The  League  pays  no  salaries  to  its  elective  officers. 

•  Its  books  are  regularly  audited  by  chartered  accountants. 

Detailed  information  is  given  in  our  pamphlet,  “A  Year’s  Work 
of  the  Navy  League.” 

The  fees  for  membership  received  heretofore  have  been  in¬ 
sufficient  to  meet  expenses.  Enthusiastic  and  patriotic  citizens 
have  made  up  the  deficit. 

Of  the  $2.00  received  from  annual  members,  $1.20  goes  to 
pay  the  expense  of  publishing  the  magazine  and  furnishing  each 
member  with  a  button.  The  balance  is  spent  in  several  ways. 

Last  year  the  following  work  was  done: 

We  spent  $1,655  on  organizing  instructive  cruises  by  civilians 
on  battleships;  $7,031  was  spent  distributing  590,100  pamphlets 
and  addressing  349  meetings,  the  total  attendance  being  120,000 
people;  $4,768  was  spent  in  increasing  the  membership  of  the 
League. 

Offices  are  maintained  in  Washington,  with  branches  in  New 
York,  Chicago,  San  Francisco,  and  New  Orleans.  The  office 
employees  are  paid  salaries. 

The  purpose  of  the  Navy  League  is  to  form  an  increasing 
membership  in  a  non-partisan,  non-political,  patriotic  society, 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  and  spreading  before  the  citizens 
of  the  United  States  authoritative  information  as  to  the  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  naval  forces,  ships  and  equipment  of  the  United 
States,  and  to  awaken  public  interest  and  activity  tending  to 
improve  and  develop  the  efficiency  of  the  navy. 


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